Recap

Trumpeter Joey Crown is in a back alley outside a club, listening to the trumpeter. Finally the owner, Baron, comes out and Joey comes over and offers to play. Baron reminds him that the last time he played, he loused it up because he was drinking. Joey insists that he's on the wagon and can be a number one boy. However, as he moves his trumpet case, a bottle of whiskey falls out. Baron gives him some money for old time's sake and asks what happened, and Joey explains that the only time he can forget his miserable life and overcome his shyness is when he's drunk. Joey walks away and then angrily throws away his case and sits down, and then starts playing...

The Houghton Construction Co. sign was named for the producer Buck Houghton.

As Gabe leaves at the end, note the lamp framed above his head at an angle, so as to give him a halo.

Episode Quotes

Opening Narration
Narrator: Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face, whose life is a quest for impossible things like flowers in concrete or like trying to pluck a note of music out of the air and put it under glass to treasure. Joey Crown, musician with and odd, intense face, who in a moment will try to leave the Earth and discover the middle ground, the place we call the Twilight Zone.

Joey Crown: Because I'm sad. Because I'm nothing. Because I'll live and die in a crummy one-roomer with dirty walls and cracked pipes. I'll never even have a girl. I'll never be anybody. Half of me is this horn. I can't even talk to people, Baron, cause this horn, that's half my language. But when I'm drunk, Baron … oh when I'm drunk, boy, I don't see the dirty walls or the cracked pipes. I don't know the clock's going, that the hours are going by, cause then I'm Gabriel. Oh, I'm--I'm Gabriel with a golden horn, and when I put it to my lips, it comes out jewels, comes out a symphony, comes out the smell of fresh flowers in summer, comes out beautiful. Beauty. When I'm drunk, Baron. Only when I'm drunk.

Pawnshop Owner: Don't worry, I ain't getting that price so fast. I got an overhead too, you know. Guys like you, you don't understand that. What kind of responsibilities somebody like you got, huh? Nothin', nothin' at all!Joey Crown: Yeah, nothin'! Nothin' at all. No responsibilities. No nothin'.

Joey Crown: But what about the people in the bar, the girl in the ticket booth, and the people in the streets?Gabe: They are dead. They're the ghosts, Joey. They just don't know it, that's all. Sometimes, to make it easier, we have to work it that way. We let them go on in a life that they're familiar with. They never know for a long while. But that's why they couldn't hear you. You're the one that's alive.Joey Crown: But like I said, I stepped off a curb...Gabe: That you did. Right now you're in a kind of a limbo, Joey. You're neither here nor there. You're in the middle, between the two. The real and the shadow. Which do you prefer, Joey?Joey Crown: Which do I prefer? You know something? I always felt I was getting dealt from the bottom, or maybe, or maybe I just forgot how much there was for me. And maybe I forgot about the music that I could make on this horn and how nice it sounded. And going into Charlie's and talking to people. And maybe going to a movie now and then, huh. You know, I never won a beauty contest, but, you know, I had friends. I mean, I had good ones. Good ones! Yeah, somewhere along the line I just forgot all the good things. That's what happened, you know. I just forgot.Gabe: You've got a choice, you know.Joey Crown: A choice?Gabe: There's still time.Joey Crown: Well, if I've got a choice, I mean, if I got a choice, then I wanna go back. Understand? I want to go back!Gabe: All right, you go back. But, Joey, no more stepping off curbs. You take what you get and you live with it. Sometimes it's sweet frosting, nice gravy. Sometimes it's sour, it goes down hard, but you live with it, Joey. Ah, it's a nice talent you got. To make music, to move people, make them wanna laugh, make them wanna cry, make 'em tap their feet, make 'em wanna dance. That's an exceptional talent, Joey. Don't waste it. See you around, Joey.Joey Crown: Hey! Hey, mister!Gabe: What is it, Joey?Joey Crown: I didn't get your name.Gabe: How's that?Joey Crown: Your name! I didn't get your name!Gabe: My name? Call me Gabe.Joey Crown: Gabe?Gabe: Gabe. Short for Gabriel. Bye, Joey.

Closing Narration
Narrator: Joey Crown, who makes music, and who discovered something about life; that it can be rich and rewarding and full of beauty, just like the music he played, if a person would only pause to look and to listen. Joey Crown, who got his clue in the Twilight Zone.

Episode Goofs

Joey looks in a mirror and sees that he has no reflection. Moments later, his reflection can be clearly seen on a glass part of a movie ticket booth.

When Joey is hit by the truck, a woman pedestrian screams in closeup. In the next shot she is standing calm and collected with her mouth closed, although the scream is still heard.